Is 41 years of age too old to get certified as a Group Fitness Instructor?

Answers

No age is too old to get certified as a Group Fitness Instructor (GFI) or to earn a Group Exercise Leadership Specialty Certification (GEL). ACE has certified GFIs and GELs ranging in chronological age between their twenties and eighties! Ask yourself these questions first-

1)Am I able to follow the required course load of study necessary for the Group Fitness Instructor certification? 2) Am I able to instruct the type of classes you want to teach with the required content and delivery style appropriate to that discipline?

Far more important than chronological age are psychological and functional ages. Psychological age refers to your ability to undertake the required cognitive tasks to follow lesson plans, study the required course materials and test successfully. Functional age refers to your ability to be able to do inside the classroom the activities necessary to teach safe and effective classes. If you can fulfill both of these requirements, you should pursue investigating this career move.

For example, Bernadette C. O’Brien, an aqua instructor based in New Jersey, decided in 2012 to earn ACE’s Group Exercise Leadership Specialty Certification at 81 chronological years-old. As a former school principal, she knew that she possessed the discipline to purchase the ACE materials and set herself up with reading and comprehension plans to digest each chapter. Because she was taking aqua classes and was able to do most of the progressions of moves in those classes, she knew that she would be physically capable of teaching others the required repertoire of moves.

She began by finding a mentor who let her practice-teach sections of classes while she was studying towards her certification. When she finally was ready to take –and pass—her ACE GEL certification, she was ready both theoretically and practically to teach safe and effective aqua classes entirely on her own.

Successful instructors above the age of 41 teach crowded, successful group fitness classes around the globe daily.